Between the Pages
by Loxare
Summary: Cass spends an afternoon reading. And then another. Two short, fluffy stories.


**AN: These are two _very_ short stories I wrote for Cass's birthday. Unfortunately, I am a bit late. Whoops... Since neither of these are big enough to warrant their own chapter, let alone a story apiece, I put them both here. Enjoy!**

* * *

 **One is not the Other**

* * *

The couch was comfy and the blanket draped over her shoulders was warm.

It was one of the rare days that Cass didn't have anything to do. With her leg propped up in front of her, the cast covered in multicoloured scrawl in many different handwritings, she couldn't train. She couldn't go out on patrol. So, since Barbara had been bugging her about it, she decided to work on her reading.

It was a old style book. When Cass had shown it to Babs, she'd said it was a 19th century romance, and while Cass had been skeptical about the romance bit, once she'd started reading, it had been better than she'd expected. She liked the way the people in the story talked. Clear and concise. She didn't understand all the words, but she had both a dictionary and a thesaurus on the coffee table, so she was fine.

And so she sat and read, one hand holding the book, the other twirling a bit of crystal. It was bumpy and ridged, but it caught the sunlight and splashed rainbows on her pages. And she smiled as Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy danced around each other. She burrows deeper into her blanket, nose tucked under the neckline of her sweater, happy.

She was alone. She was in the manor recuperating, but Damian was at school and Bruce was at work and Alfred went on a grocery run. Well, a "grocery run". Cass knew better. He was going to Jason's current safe house to restock the shelves and leave recipe cards on the counter. He would probably pop by Dick's to make sure there was more than cereal in the cupboards and to Tim's to switch all the regular coffee with decaf and all the high-caff with sedatives. Tim would figure it our, but it would take a week.

She tilted her crystal until a little slice of purple landed on her thumb. Steph had been over earlier and painted Cass's toe nails. Even though she didn't see the point (not when she would be wearing shoes and socks over them), she was glad Steph had visited. Steph coming over normally meant hearing everything that had gone on in her life since they'd last hung out, all of Steph's opinions on the latest movies and tv shows (which were much more entertaining than the actual thing), and a lot of nodding on Cass's part. It was a lot of fun!

So she was alone, she mused as she turned the page, but she wasn't lonely. Jason had lent her the book. She'd found it on her bedside table. He'd even gone so far as to cut a bat out of red construction paper so she could have a bookmark. Carefully, she shifted the bookmark up and down a few times where it was resting near the end of the book. She'd ask Bruce if she could get it laminated.

The blanket was Tim's. It was normally Cass draping it over Tim's shoulders when he pulled his third all-nighter in a row and ended up passing out over his keyboard. He'd dropped it off before he'd gone out with the Titans. Of course, she'd made him promise that he'd get more than three hours of sleep tonight. She'd already texted Conner to enforce the promise if need be.

The sweater was Dick's, and before that, Bruce's. Dick had told her that he'd stolen it out of Bruce's closet repeatedly, so often, until one day, Alfred just sorted it in with his laundry. And then Dick had made the mistake of leaving it out. It didn't matter that the sweater was in his apartment with its traps and security. If he was going to leave it in easy-to-get-into places, she was going to take it.

And the little crystal in her hand was a gift from Babs, a lucky find on a trip to Vegas with the Birds. The botanical cactus garden was strung up with thousands of lights at Christmas time, and she'd seen the light reflect off of the crystal. Cass twirled it again, watching the colours float around the room, thinking of her family.

They would be home soon. Tomorrow was her birthday after all. Dick would show up early draped in decorations and party hats. Babs would show up soon after and make him move all of the streamers dangling below head height and to tape the balloons on the wall, not just leave them around. Alfred would return from picking Bruce up from work and start on supper and the cake. Bruce would sit next to Cass and they'd watch Dick decorate while Barbara directs until Tim showed up, rumpled, with bags under his eyes, but awake. Or, awake until Cass hit him in a pressure point, making him get a good night's rest for once. Then Steph would show up with even more decorations, and at least three mixed CDs. All of which would be "party appropriate". Jason wouldn't be seen, but a small gift and a plate of peanut-butter fudge brownies would show up on the kitchen table before supper. Someday, he would come to her birthday.

But for today, Cass was alone. Alone, but not lonely. How could she be, when her family was right beside her?

* * *

 **And Once Again, o** **n a Tuesday.**

* * *

Jason wasn't entirely sure how it had happened.

Bruce was out of town on a conference and Dick was with Damian on patrol, so the Manor was safe to visit. After acquiring a plate of Alfred's cookies, he'd migrated to the library to grab a book and settle in for the night. Sure, he could have gone to a public library or a book store, but sometimes, he just liked to curl up on the Manor couches and read his way through his nostalgia. Remembering days when things had been easier. Reading in Bruce's study, listening to the scratch of the pen and the shuffle of paperwork, falling asleep next to the fire. Simple days.

So, he'd grabbed a book from the shelf and settled in to read.

He must have gotten more absorbed in his book than he'd realized, because when he stopped to rub his eyes (he had a tendency to stop blinking when he read), Cass was right next to him, reading her own book. "Holy-! Way to give me a heart attack Cass." She just shrugged and flipped the page. He mumbled something about inconsiderate bats, then went back to his book.

Ten pages later, an elbow jostled his upper arm. "What's that word?"

"Hm?" The spell broken, Jason leaned over, peering at the indicated word. "Oh. Kin. It's an old word for family." Cass nodded, and they went back to their respective reading.

She stopped him every once in a while, poking at a word on the page. Then he would pronounce it and give a general definition. Right up until, "Yes, awful is the right word. Wow, that character uses really old language. In this context, awful means to be full of awe, or admiration, for something. In this case, the king."

"So..." Cass frowned a bit at the idea. Jason didn't blame her. English was a weird language and having different meanings for different contexts really didn't help. "Something can mean good and bad, depending on what the words around it say?"

"Not just good and bad. A feather is light, and light is the opposite of darkness. So light is both weightlessness and illumination." Both large words in their own right, but if Cass didn't know them already (and she probably did), then she could use the context clues to work them out. "Words change their meaning based on context. Actually, it's a good way to figure out what a word means without having to run to a dictionary."

"Like here?" Reading aloud confidently, Cass spoke, "'It would be prudent to have a plan in the works.'"

Jason smiled proudly. "And in this context, 'prudent' means...?"

"Smart?"

"Yeah, but a Batman kind of smart. Cautious, tactical, that sort of thing."

"And they do have a plan. But they only have a minute of gunpowder? I thought minutes were time. Can it be a weight too?"

Jason took another look at the sentence. "Mai-noot in this case, not mih-niht. It means really small. So they don't have enough gunpowder to blow the warehouse."

Cass heaved a sigh. "They can be pronounced differently too?"

"Ha. Welcome to the spoken language. English is a particular pain in the butt."

With another sigh, Cass went back to her book, and Jason to his. She kept pointing out words and sentences for him to read out loud and explain, all words requiring context to figure out, or with obscure meanings, or words that hadn't been used in casual conversation at all in the past century.

Jason wasn't sure how it had happened, but he somehow ended up reading the entire book to Cass. Out loud. With different voices for different characters. The knight with the archaic vocabulary got a high pitched voice a mouse would be proud of. The rookie knight spoke in a monotone and the old bookkeeper talked in a sultry whisper. Cass was rolling on the floor laughing by the last chapter when the villain, with his deep, rumbly voice constantly interrupted by hiccoughs, was finally defeated.

From there, it became a tradition. Tuesdays were the slowest day for crime in Gotham, so Cass would show up wherever Jason was – be it safehouse in Gotham or beach in the middle of the uncharted Pacific – with a book under her arm and a list of words. He'd help her make sense of them, write out sentences to explain the different contexts, and read her a story. Sometimes, he'd just read. Sometimes, he would become a one-man acting show. Every once in a while, he would get Roy and Kori in on it, bribing them with machine parts and foreign cuisine respectively. Once, Dick dropped in through his window halfway through reading Taming of the Shrew and very happily took the role of Kate.

But always, at the end of the night, they would just sit together, a bowl of gummi bears between them, reading.


End file.
